Infection
by DizzyTech
Summary: Another accident has conflicted with Ben's summer. Vilgax and his team are taking one last ditch attempt at the Omnitrix. Story is done, like it or not. Wish I could've written an ending.
1. Discovery

**Infection**

_by Dizzy_

**Summary: **Another accident has conflicted with Ben's summer. An Omnitrix-related accident. Things go downhill as outside sources intervene, and Ben is left a little... messed up. More to be explained, and I truly hope the storty is better than my terrrible summary.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Ben 10 or any of its related characters. _Really?_ Yeah.

**Claimer:** All of the events and occurences of this story are my property. Inspiration, at any point, if possible, will be stated.

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_**And here we go, my second in-progress fanfic. Whoo-Hoo? Alright, folks, its kind of obvious I want you to read and review, but just read it for now. :-P**_

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**Chapter One: Discovery**

_Alpha Binurti, Outer Space_

_Earth Equivalent of Three Months Before Ben Recieves the Omnitrix_

The alien intern sat at a small, cramped desk. It was dark and cold in the enclosed observation room. A glass window loomed in front of him. Next to the creature sat a workstation, thousands of lines of exeptions and code rolling across the screen. The alien spoke into a microphone dangling from his misshapen head with a bizarre gurgling, "Test 4,506: Codebase 0.8.4.2." A squirming creature was dragged into the white room through the glass. A black, watchlike device sat on the captee's arm, glowing green. The alien was stapped onto a floating disk with laser straps.

"Ready, sir," the strong worker burbled into a reciever in the wall.

The programmer pressed a key on the desk.

A neon green glow filled the room with blinding frequency.

The captive alien screamed in agony. The Omnitrix tightened on its arm, glowing more fiercely with each passing second. A debugging kernel popped onto the screen as unstoppable errors plaugued the device's firmware.

The skin, if it could be called that, of the wearer's body began to bulge with an orange tumor as the other side began to thin and degenerate. For a few minutes, colors converged around the pained body with indescribable intensity as the creature pulsed with bodily size - from small to large to gigantic. For seconds at a time, the character was fully transformed into a random alien. However, it hardly lasted as the captive alien screamed out in pain as it deformed again into a formless blob.

Unknown to the observer at the computer, a door slid open behind him. A large, hulking figure entered along with a smaller, white-dressed scientist. A slithering noise distracted the tester to turn around and look at the two characters. He almost leaped out of his seat, offering his oddly shaped hand, shouting out things like, "Oh, Lord Vilgax, it's you," "Welcome, sir, you will enjoy these developments." The intern was literally slathering him with compliments and questions, trying to comfort the leader the could kill him with a stray-pointing finger.

"Shut your mouth, whelp," Vilgax shouted, in a commanding tone that made the alien trailing him almost smile. Vilgax stared into the glass window, where the creature had just went limp, likely dead, from exhaustion. Its life force wasa completely drained. "Your plans are obviously working very well, idiot." The trailing scientist chuckled.

Vilgax growled at both of them. "Fix this now for my army. Within two weeks. Or your head will be turned into a goo worthy of the Glarniaats." The tester gulped, thinking of the lowest civilization of the galaxy.

They were even below the humans.

_Alpha Binurti, Outer Space_

_Three Days Later_

The two men sat across from each other at the table. Electronic pens rarely sparked across their tablet computers, testing more and more. Writing stuff like their life depended on it. It did. "Ahem," the first one burbled. "What?" the other spat sharply.

"It's... about the Omnitrix."

"Really? Wow, I never guessed that the Omnitrix would be what you would speak of... you know, after spending two **days** sitting here on it." Glaring, the opposite continued, "I've arrived at the conclusion that we've been doing it all wrong."

The scientist gasped, and then angrily spat a few curse words toward his face. Wiping sweat from his brow, the other looked down at the tablet and back up. "The creatures... transformations, I mean, in the Omnitrix are a full footprint of the original selected candidates." The scientist across from him rolled his eyes. Glaring, he steadily went on, "... and the current machine tries to completely turn the operator into that. Meaning, they have no control." The scientist, surprised by this logic, nodded. "However, the recent prototype already samples the user's DNA at attachment to inject it into the alien. If we change it to sample more of the user's setup, we can completely replace it in the... transformations." The opposite replied, "What about the original alien? I mean, if you completely scrap them, what about...what do they call him," snapping his fingers, "... Grey Matter! Would his smartness and abilities still be there with the injection."

The genius thinker smartly replied, "Yes." The opposite studier gaped. Suddenly lowering his voice, he whispered, "_But what about Vilgax_." The thinked whispered also, "Raiders. Raiders 'stole' our prototype en route past the Milky Way."

The two stood up, smiling happily. "Let's do this!"

_Beta Zintura, Quadrant Three, Sector R, Solar System 7.42, Planet Earth_

_Four Months, Three Days, Six Hours, 32 Minutes, 7 Seconds Later_

The brown-haired ten-year-old sat angrily, twisting the delicate wheel back and forth as a screen cycled through numerous odd-looking sillhouettes. That person, spitting frustratedly into the damp air of the warehouse to egg the technology on, is Ben Tennyson.

Little did he know that an attack far different from the stinky goo and flames being shot in his direction waas about to occur.


	2. Fight Night

**Chapter Two: Fight Night**

**Story Disclaimer: **I do not own Ben 10 or any of its related characters. _Really?_ Yeah.

**Story Claimer:** All of the events and occurences of this story are not my property. They are, somehow, the property of my alter-ego who knows how to access my account.

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_**Alrighty, chapter two! Not as many folks reviewed, but I'll live (somehow).**_

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The ten-year-old continued to curse in his head as the mutated excuse for a human continued to throw insults at him.

Goo encased the previously mentioned as a sticky glue, adhering the boy to the dark, damp warehouse wall. A deep, nasty voice burbled in front of him. Needless to say, the creature was ugly beyond description. The amalgamation of alien had driven the teenager occupying the body borderline insane and fully angry.

It was just Ben Tennyson's luck that Kevin, the egomaniac New-Yorker transformed into a power-hungry, idiotic, alien had found a wormhole through space. It was also surely a coincidence that it opened up on Earth and not on Pluto.

Ben, brought back to the real world and, unfortunately, to the disfigured face that was now talking to him. "What now, loser? Huh! HA!" The ten-year-old spat into his alien-goo-gag, reminding the idiot in front of him (albeit sarcastically) of his inability to talk. He also spotted a red, flower print shirt swoop behind a series of boxes in the corner of the room.

Kevin continued to talk, obviously evident of his ignored intimidation. "Well, dork, revenge is now mine!" A ball of flame flew in his direction, and that was the end.

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_Orbiting Ship,_ _Beta Zintura, Quadrant Three, Sector R, Solar System 7.42, Outer Space  
_

The purple-haired alien spat into a microphone perched on his head, "It was activated! Planet Earth, Western Hemisphere. Send the program now."

A man across the room tapped a few keys and pressed a button and grinned. "Executed." The man began to giggle like a manic.

A call was heard from across the room. "Nerd!"

With the speediness of a brand new satellite, a string of data was sent flying down onto Earth. Somewhere in the continental United States. In the center. Through a warehouse roof.

The odd satellite feed and disappeared into a small emerging logo on the back of a small, gray beast. The logo, unlike its usual appearance, glowed orange.

Minutes later the fight was over as Max Tennyson fired a bizarre weapon at the monster.

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Sweat dripping dramatically from his brow, Ben sat bolt upright, screaming in a terrified manner. The machine on his arm glowed orange like a childish night-light, and panting ensued.

And that is where is all began.

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_**Chappie Two done! R&R now and tell me how it is. Have a good day!**_

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	3. Clearing Morning

**Chapter Three: Clearing Morning**

**Story Disclaimer: **I do not own Ben 10 or any of its related characters.

**Story Claimer:** All of the events and occurences of this story are my property.

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**_Alrighty, chapter three! This goes out to Overactive Mind, my cough cough _only _reviewer. Anyway, please read and review because they are the only indications of people liking the story._**

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The loud sound of snoring filled the cramped room of the vehicle, annoying the heck out of the one awake person.

In other words, Gwen Tennyson sat on the hard couch, wide awake, waiting for the two males around her to snore themselves awake. Clearly, this was a morning occurrence, and was giving the girl less and less sleep as the summer went on.

To ease her heightening annoyance and boredom, Gwen pulled out her laptop and began to play around. She waited for the system to boot and, as it did, her wi-fi connection light began to blink. She pressed a button to pull up a virtual radar of connections, and blinked at what she saw. Shaking her head, she thought, "_Weird, there's something directly inside here_. _It's probably just stupid Windows._" Deciding not to worry herself this early in the morning, she let it pass and began to play a game.

Minutes later Ben awoke. The only reason for him to be risen from his seemingly endless slumber was the simple fact that he had just crashed onto the terribly carpeted floor of the recreational vehicle. He looked up and around and began to stand up, grinning idotically. _Another morning. Sweet._

_**Two Hours Later**_

Max Tennyson sat placidly at the table, eating some unrecognizable stew of animal remains of some kind, savoring them like his final breakfast. His grandchildren had taken to arguing on the other side of the RV over the last bowl of cereal. Max thought something sarcastic about bowls of mealworms to say but, instead, sat and stared at the two, amused.

"Oh, come on, like you don't get all you want!" Ben shouted, yanking the box of corrugated cardboard (and I mean the cereal, not the box it was in) from Gwen's hands. "Oh, get a grip, loser, this is coming from the kid having, like, the best summer of his flipping life, here!" Gwen dove to try and get a better hold on the box.

Seconds later chaos ensued as the two entered the ten-year-old equivalent of a cousin versus cousin wrestling match. However, the fight was interrupted by a loud explosion and a series of screams from outside.

"But it's only eight...wrar!" Gwen screamed, pulling at the box, "in the...grrr... morning!" Pointing a taunting finger as he swiped the box from her grasp yet again, Ben spat, "Ha! Got it!" He threw the box back at the table, thinking Gwen would want to watch him battle rather than taking advantage of his stupidity, and said cockily, Now let's go kick some butt, huh?" Gwen rolled her eyes and stood behind as Max and Ben raced through the door.

Outside, all hell was breaking loose. At least seven gargantuan masses of metallic beings were blowing the camp site apart. "Sounds like a job for Diamondhead!" Ben sassed as he pressed a button and slapped his wrist, hoping the randomization would work in his favor.

However, life does not work like that and, soon, a liquid-metallic green, black, and white figure emerged from a green fog. In a metallic, echoed voice not unlike his own, Ben, now Upgrade, rumbled, "That'll work."

Ben ran toward the creatures in his metallic form and attacked the outside of the robot. As he blended in, sparks and smoke began to rise from the proverbial head of the robot and, soon, Ben came off of the robot and it exploded.

Across the smoky clearing, Max and Gwen, who had re-emerged from the camphor with a bowl of cereal, heard a shout of, "What alien has a self-destruct program?!"

A few minutes later, Ben was trying to beat the last robot, however, he was having trouble. This one was stronger and fiercer than the others. Every time Upgrade tried to meld with it, it threw him right back off. At one point, a logical error made Upgrade melt off at its top.

There the roller coaster began. Upgrade tried to meld with just the top plate to keep him from flying off. As the robot bucked him off once again, fate at last took its chance and the ten-year-old boy began to hear the agonizing sound of depleting energy.

Though something was wrong. It sounded different. Reversed, almost.Looking at his own chest, Ben realized the Omnitrix emblem under his neck was flashing golden yellow. A hiss of "What the..." exploded as he reverted back to a human and (screwy luck again) gravity decided to look at him and realize, "Hey, what the hell is a human doing flying in a straight line?" As a result, Ben then landed, a pile of spitting dirt and dust.

Max and Gwen rushed over to the coughing and gagging boy and pulled him up, asking him if he was all right.

In case you were wondering, the robot powered by, for some odd reason, gasoline, would fall in a few minutes to its electronic death in a river. So much for hardware protection.

After pulling him up, Max and Gwen stood back and, realizing something was up, Ben asked, "What's up?" as their stares got larger.

Ben began to frown, looked down at himself and realized that an Omnitrix logo was embedded into his chest, glowing a deep shade of orange. Turning around and looking at himself like a dog chasing his tail, he began to say, "Anything else? What's going on?" and other ad-libbed exclamations. He began to cough and slap his chest as he realized his voice, while to same, was distant and eerie, like it was through a can. "What the heck is up?"

Max, eyes widened in concern, whispered, "...uhh...Ben, eyes..." Ben turned around and looked into the dusty glass on the side of the RV and, looking past his disheveled, brown hair and clean, even features and into his eyes. He saw, not his regular shade of acidic green but, a bright hue of metallic silver in his eyes. They looked deep and, every few seconds, a tinge of green flashed through the black when light passed through them.

Gwen, always the talker, began first. "Er... Ben... what's going on?"

Millions of miles upward, an alien sat in a swiveling chair, giggling while another next to him glared timidly. Two monitors were in a wall in front of them. On the first lay a screen of figures and status readings of a certain running program while the other was a full-color display of the three in the forest on Earth below. The laughing one continued to do so, spluttering and spitting all over the equipment.

As he felt a warm, hot, breath on his shoulder, a sudden deep, eternally angry splutter of, "Nice work, when will we have our device back?" came.

The laughing stopped and it gulped. He mouthed, "Crap!"

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_**Alright, another one done. It gets deeper! Please, please, review more this time or I'll die! Have a nice day and I hope you like it!**_

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	4. Confusion

**Chapter Four: Confusion**

**Story Disclaimer: **I do not own Ben 10 or any of its related characters.

**Story Claimer:** All of the events and occurrences of this story are my property.

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_**Hooray, Chapter Four! Sorry I didn't post sooner. Please read and review! Again, you are my fuel source and I will quit without people reading it.**_

_**By the way, if you had read chapters 2 & 3 before July15, 2006, reread them. I made some adjustments that will affect all future chapters. Made them less vague, if possible.**_

_**Also, this chapter goes out to "AirGirl Phantom" and "Maxxaronie".**_

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Ben sat on the couch with his leg cocked over one side. He was upset, weirded out and, most of all, confused.

He didn't feel much different than himself. He had a slight headache that could be attributed to the buzzing feeling in his brain. It felt like electricity was zapping through it.

_I'm messed up, and the first thing I hear out of super-geek Gwen's mouth is 'The brain's synapses all have electricity going through them, dork.', _Ben thought, imitating her sarcastic, high-pitched voice in his head.

However, Ben had one feeling that was definitely out of place. This sensation had nothing to do with the Omnitrix emblem protruding from his chest, the disappearance of the Omnitrix itself (both of which are related to his feeling), the odd feelings in his throat and chest, and the darker quality of everything he saw.

Ben felt like he did every time he was one of the Omnitrix's aliens. He felt odd, out of place, changed. Like his being was injected into something not his own. That is what, most of all, made him confused and scared.

Gwen was on the other side of the RV, clicking away on her laptop. _Probably posting on her stupid blog._ Ben half-smiled. One thing that could make any problem better was annoying Gwen, even behind her back.

As soon as they got inside, Grandpa Max locked the door and ran to the driver's seat, where Ben quickly watched a LCD screen quickly pop out of the dashboard. Ben was at a total loss.

Boredom quickly masked the confusion and fear until, a few moments later, the logo on his torso began to flash a sickly red that was immediately accompanied by an all-too-familiar powering-down noise.

Uh-oh.

**_Orbiting Research Station owned by the Galactic Federal Government, Outer Space_**

The orange-purple creature in a white jacket sat in anticipation watching two large screens. Now was a time of waiting. Another alien sat next to him, still smiling from the previous events of the day. _Idiot, _he thought. _Threatened to death by Lord Vilgax and he still foolishly giggles._ The multiple amount of eyes he had rolled angrily.

He suddenly heard the hiss of pressurized doors and a cold blast of air hit him. _Another one of Vilgax's stolen help from conquered planets._ "I'm here to...help." The first worker worked up a smile not too short of a lethal glare and turned his seat in the direction of the slave labor. "What is it?" he said, exasperated. Could he be trusted? Was he a spy or part of the resistance? Either way, he built up an emotional wall and motioned to continue with his tentacles.

"Word has spread across the government that you are trying to get the Omnitrix." The scientist spat, "Really? I thought the three months without Vilgax's ultimate army destroying our enemies would have given it away!" He meekly replied, "Well..." A voice was suddenly heard from beside them where the other observer spun around and began shouting, "Cut to the chase, genius! None of us want you here, you hired mailroom lackey, so tell us what you want and leave." The visitor clasped his humanoid fingers and pointed to the wall, signaling that they needed to quite down so they weren't overhead by sensors.

He began to whisper. "Okay, uh... I'm in disguise. In cognito. Undercover. Got my point?" The pair suspiciously nodded. "I was on the team of people that originally formulated and designed the Omnitrix, before Vilgax and you two brainiacs came and took it all. He kneeled in closer. "I want it back from the humans as much as you and the government do. However, I don't want to give it up to the army of the galaxy, which I, according to your profiles, assume you do not either."

The two began to warm up. "Yeah..." one said, while the other rubbed his long neck with his fatty fingers and stuck a tentacle from another arm in midair.

"Alright, then. I hear from the..." his voice lowered again, "_resistance_ that you two are trying to force it off the human in some kind of plan. "Well, yes..." one of them responded but was quickly interrupted. "Okay. So, I want you to tell me right here and now and tell what said plan is."

Still suspicious, one of the two scientists slowly began, "Well, we began by sending down a little program update to the Omnitrix. It allows us complete control while still giving command access to the user."

The other one continued, "And while we created the replacement core for the one you made to allow for DNA substitution, we put in some..."

"extra functions," the other one picked up, "to allow for the reverse."

"Once we took control from the original developers, we had many problems with the aliens mixing and matching. Combination, in other words."

"And, since we substituted your work with ours, it was laid down on top of the existing API."

"So, to simplify things for the prototype, we just injected the user's DNA..."

"...in this case the human's,"

"as another alien. Using a forcing code, we naturally mixed the the core of the user with the alien's body and personality."

The observer looked on, seemingly engrossed. He (or it, nobody's sure) smiled inwardly."So how does this come in to your plan to drive it off of the human?"

"It's all in what we just said," began the first one as the second burst in, "We start by reversing the input!"

"Huh?"

"The alien program has a fall back parameter..."

"...To use the original alien in case the user's bio wasn't accepted."

"All we do is force the selected alien's fall back switch..."

Grinning, the third person shouted, "onto the human switch, mix them, and pull up the final mix as a real transformation!"

"YES!"

"But what's next?"

"Then," he laughed, "we just totally screw with him. Mix and match, reverse things, reset his memory, all kinds of funny stuff!"

The first scientist took on his steely expression again and glowered at his partner. "Other than that, by the time our team goes down to pick it up, the boy will be begging for it to be forced off him!"

The visitor looked up at the screen in front of him and watched the scene millions of miles below.

_**-------------------------------------------------------------**_

Ben, scared out of his skin, continued to look down at his chest at the red light flashed faster and faster and the sound became quieter and quieter. Max spun around out of his seat and Gwen stood up from the restaurant-style booth.

Far too quickly, a blinding green light filled the RV. For the first time, probably due to the closed space, a greenish smoke filled the room at the same time.

It cleared after a few hand motions.

What sat on the couch was nothing unfamiliar. However, the stunned, scared look on his or her face was what scared them the most.

The creature in front of them talked with a a monotone hiss with a confused tone in it. It quickly looked around and stopped at Gwen and Max. She then began to ask questions.

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_**Talk about lazy coders! Read and review please, and tell me where I need to improve! By the way, the constant quotation endings above was switching between the two scientists from the first chapter as they interrupted each other. Also, I am having trouble deciding on genders of the characters. However, if you can guess the above alien, I'll give you a cookie!**_

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	5. Back

**Chapter Five: Back**

**Story Disclaimer: **I do not own Ben 10 or any of its related characters.

**Story Claimer:** All of the events and occurrences of this story are not my property. Yes, in fact, they were all the idea of some loser named _zwaldowski._

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_**Alright, we're at chappie five, reliable readers! There's not much to say, other than that I am a total nerd (last chapter), just read it! This chapter goes out to... nobody! I'm just trying to get this chapter up! **_

_**Also, nobody gets the cookie, but they did persuade who this was going to be. It was originally XLR8, but... I thought about it, and your responses were logical, so you get the cookie! Whee!**_

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No human has yet to feel, and probably would not have for quite a few years unless it was for Ben Tennyson, the odd, creepy, tingling sensation that will be, eventually, attributed to being stored digitally. It is an odd feeling. It is there that your psyche, personality, molecular composition, knowledge, memory, and other parts of you are decomposed and recompiled into a single set of files. This was a method well disputed among health advocates. To most programming structures, this setup was unbelievably easy to edit and, in totality, screw up. Unfortunately, earlier-on prototypes of the Omnitrix had included this storage programming.

This was the premise to the lonely pair of hackers enslaved (or 'hired') by the Galactic Emperial Government. Luckily, they never patched the vulnerability on its unsuspecting host, who had become Ben Tennyson, and not thousands of Galactic soldiers as expected.

So, now they were forced to use their own back door against their cause to save their skins. What jerks.

However, that is enough of that. We could go and describe the methods of this and technology disputes throughout the known galaxy for the rest of our lives. But we have a story to get to.

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Max Tennyson cursed in his head; he knew something like this would happen ever since Ben acquired this strange device. Gwen, though slightly worried for her cousin, was cursing for other reasons. She was getting great internet reception when she piggybacked onto the satellite array beaming into their RV using her laptop. Dang, now she couldn't use it.

However, these new developments had scared the two in the RV for different reasons. Max and Gwen were scared mainly for Ben and their direct health as a consequence. They were also afraid of the hissing voice coming from, no, above, the couch. However, the third person, sitting on the couch, was not scared at all. He, or she, was actually extremely happy. In an evil fashion, too.

As soon as the greenish fog cleared, looks of horror spread across the faces of Max and Gwen Tennyson. Grandpa Max ran from the room as Gwen, with the fearing look also, narrowed her eyes.

"You!" Ghostfreak hissed. It looked down at itself and realized that it was in its original form (4 its, I know). Ghostfreak's eye sped along its track angrily. Or, at least that was what it came across as to Gwen. "I am...back! I will conquer now! But where... is the...yes!" Ghostfreak took that moment to look to its shoulder where, embedded into the bizarre matter making up its body, a black strip with the Omnitrix watch face sat.

Gwen realized this idea at the exact same moment. She thought back to a couple of weeks ago at the Bancroft School where Ghostfreak tried to possess Ben and gain the power to take over the world. Ben mentioned that Ghostfreak's plan was to use the respective power of the Omnitrix and its aliens, combined with Ben's willpower and humanity, to mask his vulnerabilities and make him nearly invincible.

He had nearly had the same effect by blocking out the sun with a satellite beam infused with Coronium, but failed as well.

And now, Ghostfreak was the user of the Omnitrix. Some strange bug (at least that was all she could pin to it) made Ben an alien transformation. _Therefore, Ben just reverted to Ghostfreak... so he has the Omnitrix!_ Gwen rapidly thought. _So Ben is an alien to the Omnitrix just like Wildmutt or Grey Matter... which means..."_ Gwen was then interrupted by Ghostfreak who had come to the same stark revelation, shouting, "I have that hero's power!"

A small, wispy sound of electricity sizzled into the air as the plate on Ghostfreak's shoulder glowed a bright, neon green and popped up. "And that's my cue!" a hiss came into the room.

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The true Ben Tennyson was extremely deep in thought. He was completely confused and unsure what to do. Ben was completely disoriented when he appeared in this... 'storage'; the only phrase Ben could think to put to this. He could hazily remember how he got here. In fact, he took a few minutes when he arrived to remember who he was and how he arrived to his current position, and only hoped that everything was alright.

He was at a total and complete loss. Ben could only imagine the chaos in the real world... especially considering that he was here... it was then he felt an extremely odd tingling sensation and a red light surrounded him.

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Ghostfreak continued to smile evilly as, arms by his side, he floated in a semi-transparent form. He slammed the face on his shoulder with a short silhouette on it and, for the second time in five minutes, a green light filled the room. No fog, no smoke came this time. Just like a regular transformation.

Out came a smiling form of Ben Tennyson. However, many things were different. Ghostfreak-Ben, referred to from now on as GB, in fact, was radically different from his regular self. GB's eyes glowed a blood red and his face lacked all emotions beside anger, loathing, and pure evil. There was no way this was Ben.

Max stuck his head out of a closet door after hearing the Omnitrix. He saw and heard his red-eyed, malevolently-grinning grandson, spit, "Time for some fun," in a voice eerily similar to Ben's. GB then jumped up into the air and floated, transparently, through the roof. Max, throat swelling in rage, fear, and concern, choked out, "Oh..."

"... no!" screamed a voice millions of miles above the face of the Earth. The first scientist hit his partner in arm, shreiking, "Look, you idiot!" The visitor ran over from a corner, and began watching the monitor with another two. Screens of readings were being thrown out from the monitor next to it.

"Isn't that... the human?" one of them whispered, watching GB fly away, arms in front of him, at high speed. "Unfortunately, no..." the first spoke quietly. "...the ghostly one had discovered our ruse, and is combining his power with the human's; he is now... invincible." He continued, choking out the last word with great disdain.

"What ghostly one?" the third questioned. "Well, aside from the creator's original set of transformations, Vilgax requested..." "cough...forced...cough" the second one spat. "...that we use prisoner's DNA samples to add others in. Among them were an...um...er...well...Ectonurite."

"You WHAT?! You put an ECTONURITE INSIDE A LEVEL THREE DIGITAL STORAGE DEVICE!" Clearly weirded out by his response, the second one, after a meek "yes..." from his partner, said like a child, "Is that bad?"

"IS IT BAD? What are you, a complete retard! An Ectonurite is a matter-altering being with its mind tied to its flipping DNA! YOU WERE PUTTING A HOMICIDAL MONSTER INTO THE OMNITRIX! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?"

The first scientist, continually meek, said, "We...were...trying... not to be killed. We had to follow orders..." The second one, now angry, yelled, "Well, of course we did! I think we did enough triple-crossing our own resistance to jettison it! I mean, on the human, its bad enough, but Vilgax would destroy every vulnerable planet in the galaxy, including..."

_**------------------------------------**_

"... this measly planet Earth!" he continued to shout, floating above the unsuspecting town with his arms crossed, grinning more evilly than ever.

Ben Tennyson continued to laugh and, transparent, flew down again onto the streets. Sticking his own arm out and extending his invisibility onto his own skin, GB terrified at least twelve citizens with a nice look at his insides. Shiver now, please.

The real Ben Tennyson, in spirit at least, watched this all from the sidelines. _I must be more attached to my body than the others_, Ben thought, trying to associate this ghastly live show of himself... with ghostliness aside... attacking the town.

Time after time he felt an electrical pulse flash through him as Ghostfreak phased into a human, effectively possessing it. And, for now, GB was winning. It was only a matter of time before his plans fully came into frution.

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_**Read and review please, and tell me where I need to improve! I have no idea what to do next, in case you didn't know...**_

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	6. In Between

**Chapter Six: In Between**

**Story Disclaimer: **I do not own Ben 10 or any of its related characters. _Yes, you do._ Of course I don't! Are you crazy? _Yes, you do! _Are you insane? What are you doing! Leave me alone! _Muhahahahahahahaha!_

**Story Claimer:** All of the events and occurrences of this story are my property.

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_**Yippee, Chapter Six is here! I'm not crazy, too!**_

_**Thanks for the reviews, I needed them.**_

_**This chapter goes out to Idiots Unite who either tried to boost my story or just doesn't check which account she (or he) is logged in on when posting reviews (kidding) and Overactive Mind, who almost made me giggle onto the floor (not kidding). Yeah.**_

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A greenish-black alien dressed in white latex paced across the room, rubbing his temples with his stubby, flexing hands.

The yellowish-orange alien in front of him smiled weakly and said, "Well, it can't be that bad, can it?"

A smack was heard from the corner of the room while yet another alien slammed down his tablet computer, roaring, "That bad! THAT BAD! Are you KIDDING ME! You two geniuses but an Ectonurite into a digital storage class forty-six device under the orders of your... _Lord Vilgax_," waving his arms around, "who is now yukking it up down on a mostly harmless planet, in a freaking human body, and IS COMPLETELY FRICKING INVINSIBLE!"

The second scientist, now leaning back so far that he almost tumbled backward, watched the spit fly onto his face as the mercenary charged into his face. Spreading his surprisingly cold breath onto the unsuspecting worker, "I don't think it could get ANY FREAKING WORSE THAN THAT, BUDDY!"

His partner finally felt a grin spread across his face as the careless worker got his own medicine. Jumping up and stopping the programmer from reaching his strong, humanoid hands out to punch the alien's neckless face, he soothed, "Whoah, whoa, whoah, calm down, there. Rather than killing the," he smiled and pointed, "decidedly stupid third wheel, we need to do something."

Starting out calmly, the third person said, with his voice steadily rising, "Well, I usually would be able to find a way out of this, but I didn't first start out by putting an Ectonurite into a device, switch the original user from a harmless human to SAID ALIEN AND LETTING HIM EQUIP A WILLFUL HUMAN CHILD AS AN ALIEN TRANSFORMATION."

The first scientist, seriously getting pissed from the constant criticism from this unknown intruder, "Is there anybody that can fix this, sharpshooter?" Slowly moving his arms again toward the other person's neck, he moved away and grit his teeth. "No. At least, nobody that can reach us."

_**------------------------------------**_

Max and Gwen Tennyson stopped for a breath as the wide road finally opened into town which was, at this point, emitting hundreds of screams of terror, several explosions, approximately forty-six car alarms and horns, and sixteen plumes of smoke.

"Why...gaspgasp... is today...coughgasp...the day they pick...pantpant...to be...completely...gasp...evil!"

Max looked up into the sky suspiciously while wheezing slightly, choking, "Who...ackgasp...knows..."

_**------------------------------------**_

Ben Tennyson, at least in spirit, was thoroughly upset at this point. He walked, no, floated through the endless expanse.

In fact, Ben took this chance to reminisce on the past few months. He felt sickened now at the fact that he had used one of the most powerful weapons in existence as a playful toy, as he had many times. Some of the most powerful beings in the galaxy... and they had to be him. He was disgusted at what he had done. He couldn't imagine doing that anymore. It felt as if that was a completely different part of him that was...missing. There it was again.

There was just... it was just... he felt a disturbing tinge that something was... missing. Like some things were being blocked when he thought about them. He just had an odd feeling that something was slowly going away.

_I'm going stir crazy_, he realized, _or something else is wrong_. Ben couldn't imagine how the other aliens and their respective minds have survived this thus far. However, a deep suspicion was ebbing at the back of his mind. _But they don't, _he thought. _Ghostfreak said that he was the only one awake. He said he was tied to his DNA._ His thoughts slowly, but surely, came full circle. _Which means everything other than their bodies and powers are stored only just in case something bad happens, like now..._ Ben was angrily coming to a few conclusions.

_So if they don't get used in a long time they... go... into some kind of storage. So I will too._

The stark revelation blasted him like Fourarms had just punched him. It was... unimaginable. As he left this thought, he realized it was already happening. He was being... put away.

Ben became furious. He had to work harder... to break through... to do something. He concentrated, worked, thought, but couldn't do anything. He was stuck here. And there was nothing he could do.

_**------------------------------------**_

Ghostfreak was having a blast. A blast, not your usual persuasion of a series of fun events, filled with possessions, attacks, beams, rays, and general terror and gross-outs.

The citizens and other tourists were, quite obviously, not having any fun and were, frankly, terrified. Vacations, in their sense of the term, does not include being shot at and possessed by a floating, cackling, ten-year-old boy.

GB continued to wholeheartedly attack. Now might be a good time to state that his whole original plan was a bluff. He knew something special would happen when he merged with Ben, but not just what.

He was formulating his plan as he heard a shout of, "Gwen, no!" and was hit in the square of his neck and knocked onto the ground. And, screwy fate, a red light began to blink on Ben's arm. The boy-alien, now on the hot, sun-heated, and now empty pavement began to smirk.

Max and Gwen rushed over him as the ghostly alien concentrated, pulling the Omnitrix out of its power struggle.

It was at that point in which Ghostfreak tried to embed himself into Ben to ensure his win.

He rolled over onto his side and coughed, adding certain mock tones to his voice. Wiping a look of fear and desperation onto his human face, GB screamed, "Gwen, Grandpa, Help! It's me, Ben!"

Gwen and Max leaped onto him in a bear hug. "Is it really you?" one of them asked. The ten-year-old human/alien smirked again as he spat one simple word and blasted the two onto the ground. "No."

"Weak humans!" he yelled, and leaped into the air. Needless to say, the Tennysons were now thoroughly pissed.

_**------------------------------------**_

The three in space, were, surprisingly, not weary of each other's company yet. After all of them had taken a breather, and by breather I mean one walking out of the room to get some water and the other convincing the other if he didn't shut up and listen the airlock would be his last sight, they had sat and watched the insane scene unfolding below. However, one looked away for a second at his tablet computer, and he suddenly began to curse extremely loudly.

His partner and the visitor twisted around away from the view screens, confused at the sudden eruption of profanities from the alien behind them.

"That sneaky little..." he rumbled, but was interrupted by wry looks from the two other men in the room. "Oh... ah... well," flipping his screen to a vantage point for the others.

Something was wrong.

_**------------------------------------**_

The Omnitrix's face glowed a decidely stange pale brown as power coursed through Ghostfreak's double body, resuming his cackling as he willed the machine on.

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Ben felt an odd sucking sensation as a green light filled the space. He suddenly disappeared from that bizarre storage realm. Ben was completely unsure of his location, but he was happy to realize he had his body back. The next sight he saw was... Ghostfreak. It hissed excitedly, wiping the smile from Ben's returned face.

"Time for our meeting at last, weak human." he spat, ugly as ever.

Ben tried to retort as best he could, but felt that scary draining, losing sensation again as Ghostfreak dived into the boy.

The real world came back into focus as one Ben Tennyson stood, confused and understanding, good and evil, happy and mad, excited and scared at the same time.

Something was definitely wrong.

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_**Read and review please, and tell me where I need to improve!**_

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	7. Fragmented

**Chapter Seven: Fragmented**

**Story Disclaimer: **I do not own Ben 10 or any of its related characters.

**Story Claimer:** All of the events and occurrences of this story are obviously not my property. This chapter is brought to you by the left half of my mind, who is slowly trying to use the right side of my body to kill the other side of my mind. Thank you, and have a nice day.

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_**Folks, we're now at chapter seven, and its getting better! I'm so sorry it's so late, you guys probably hate me, but things came in the way (like my brand new laptop!). This was actually supposed to be finished yesterday, which was also supposed to be finished the day before. Life sucks.**_

_**Again, thanks for the reviews, I needed them.**_

_**This chapter goes out to, in fact, everybody.**_

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The elderly man came to dazed and utterly confused. A rough surface warmed the threads of his flowery red shirt along with his back. He was clearly in pain, and he truly did not want to move. His muscles and bones severely ached, and his eyes slowly fluttered open. The sky was a deep, beautiful blue with very few white wisps of puffy clouds. That was the first thing he focused on; rather, in front of it were the hazy tops of roadside trees and plumes of smoke floated across the blue sky.

He slowly shook his arms and legs. They moved slowly and surely, in tune with the signal from his brain. _That's good,_ he optimistically thought. The aches in his figure slowly went away. He pushed his arms to his right and smoothly rolled onto his side. His back and face were burned, by the tarmac and sun respectively.

The scene overwhelmed his reawakening mind. In the background, again, were a line of trees, a strip of blue sky, and a glowing ball that was the sun. He quickly accepted that, and focused closer. Lines of buildings transformed into convenience stores, grocery stores, fast food joints, and gas stations. Hot black lines of asphalt sizzled warmly in the south-eastern sun. Half-sized strips of green foliage were in between these roads. Some, however, were broken, smoking, or eradicated. The man agreed with that too. Cars lay abandoned, some overturned, some still on, others smoking.

Then came the next layer. This one, in fact, arrived in his mind at the same time as the occurrences of that day and his self-awareness and hit him hard. Staring at the large, aging male stood a young boy in baggy olive cargo jeans and a white and black-striped t-shirt with a scared, noticing look on his face. Not that the man truly noticed it, but his eyes were a deep, inhuman shade of yellow; it was almost honey-colored.

Max Tennyson quickly recognized Ben as normal and fine as he kneeled down, saying his name repeatedly and asking if he was okay.

Ben was back, I think.

Inside his mind, Ben Tennyson was having an epic... battle, of sorts.

Now, for future reference, Ben's virtual mind is split into two parts, one part that is narrowly controlled by Ben's own mind, the other intercepted and infected by Ghostfreak. Ben's mind, in this state, allowed a mixing point very similar to that of the Omnitrixs' digital vacuum. Here, mental representations of both of the mind's occupants could be comprehensibly seen by each other.

Again, due to its state, both of the mind's occupants could take control at any time. In this mental representation, also, both could see the outside world and feel any of its affects on his body. And, yet again, something clearly was messed up.

Ben glanced away from the wide screen physically corresponding to his eyesight, angrily glaring at Ghostfreak's true, tentacled form. "What are you doing?" he shouted, pointing an imaginary finger at Ghostfreak.

The alien's half of the mind huffily responded, "Oh, please, weak human, do you honestly think this differs from the previous time I tried to rule the world?"

Ben thoughtfully rubbed his chin for a moment before resuming his pose. "Err... no." Ghostfreak cackled, and continued to talk. "Right, foolish child, but now..." he spat as his imaginary arms charged electricity, "I am unstoppable! And, before long, we will be permanently fused."

"NO!" Ben shouted immediately. "I…I won't let you do that!"

"I'm afraid that is not your decision, Ben. You will join me, by choice, or your mind will be set on a proverbial… frappe!" Ghostfreak hissed as he unleashed a charge of blue energy on Ben's mind. His half of the mind quickly lost control and the other side immediately assumed control of the youth's poor, screwed up body.

Soon it would be owned by the evil entity in both aspects.

_**------------------------------------**_

Pages upon virtual pages of random, unneeded data scrolled across the empty, manufactured air, hazily reflecting the patterns of light shining into the room via a hole.

"That evil, conniving, little piece of shape shifting…" The steadily angrier being was interrupted by a nasally, sarcastic voice, "…alien that is just taking advantage of your screw-up." The speaker quickly received an icy glare. Grinning, and at last hoping they are regretful, he shrugged, and innocently said, "Just saying."

The second of the three suddenly walked into the room with a pressurized hiss, carrying a hot titanium mug containing a hot, black liquid delightfully similar to human coffee. He walked over to the wall of displays, focusing on the two or three also concentrated on by his comrades. Without any kind of warning, he dumped the black, caffeine-filled magma onto the back of one of them, screaming, "What the hell is that!" and pointing to the screen.

Screams of pain from next to them were ignored as the readings became excessively dangerous. The third, now in a sarcastic mood, shouted without moving, "Just absorb it, Jello, and get over here… it's getting worse…"

_**------------------------------------**_

Ben was getting pretty sick and tired of becoming a helpless passenger to his own fricking body. He watched as Ghostfreak was using him – his mind, his thoughts, his memories, his voice, and, most of all, his body – to begin his plot.

On the outside, life was resumed inside the RV. While the city was filled with the dying chaos, the Tennysons managed to calm down and restore some order by sneaking away from the deserted section of highway. Max was trying to pull together some kind of lunch (nonetheless in his own opinions and not the kids') while Gwen leaned against a plaster partition between the couch and driver's seat starting suspiciously at Ben, who was reading a comic book.

Ben stuck his lip out apprehensively and dropped the manga into his lap, looking at Gwen solidly with a look of discontent mixed with confusion. He paired the look with a questioning phrase of, "What's up, Gwen?" She narrowed her gaze at him for a moment and straightened up onto the wall. "Oh! Well, I was just thinking about this morning…"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean about you and Ghostfreak."

"Huh?"

Gwen narrowed her eyes once more. "You do remember, don't you?"

Ben thought for a second and, as though startled, jumped right in, "Well, yeah, duh, of course I do. I mean, not much, though. You mean like me being stuck in the watch, right?"

Gwen thought about it for a second. "_Wouldn't Ben mention that to us first? He acted like nothing happened…"_ She then responded. "No, don't you remember about you destroying the town?"

"Yes," Ben said, but quickly corrected himself, "No! I mean no, of course I don't, nope, I don't remember nothin' about that!"

Gwen crossed her arms._ Strike One._

She quickly kneeled down to his level on the couch. "Okay, then, what about your eyes, Ben?" She was replied with an anxious screech of, "What?"

He ran into the bathroom, looking at himself in the glassy mirror. His pupils were rapidly dilating while his eye color was shifting between a deep yellow and his normal lime green.

The alien cursed in his head and thought, "_The boy is powerful. I have to fix this fast."_

Gwen heard the light alien profanity from the other room. "_Strike two."_

_**------------------------------------**_

"It's… unspeakable. It's impossible! It's insane! It can't be done by any physical being!" he shouted. The greenish-brown figure next to him growled, "That's the point, genius." The one in the middle chattered. "He's right, though. That's the point of this all. He's playing beyond the rules of… anything."

"Well, it's obvious what he's doing, though…"

"But not obvious enough to be able to stop…"

"…again, there's the point, though. I mean, look at these readouts. I wouldn't like my mind to be split with a maniacal alien who wants to take over my body."

"But Ghostfreak's too powerful for him."

"But they'll be irreversibly intertwined soon enough."

The arguing scientist and mercenary were interrupted. "But why should we care? Let the kid grow up to be a serial killer in the name of an Ectonurite; all the insane asylum's for him, then. Let's just concentrate on our goal."

He received a questioning stare from the interloper. "Do you **have** no ethics? He's an innocent human child. You know, don't answer that, I'll just prove you wrong anyway."

"What do you mean?"

His partner pointed at diagnostic tests running subliminally through Ben's body. "The ghost has physically tied the Omnitrix into both of their forms. He's trying to embed all three of them into one another."

"So, this guy's creating a mix and match party of death!"

"Exactly. We just got to stop that before he does such."

The speaker spun around, looking at the creator of the sudden outburst. "We…can't. The boy is seconds away from becoming half-alien."

_**------------------------------------**_

Ben finally gained back a sense of self control to see Ghostfreak. An ugly sight at any time, he was even worse with a splitting heading and a lot of anger.

Ghostfreak cackled. "Nice to see you, sleepyhead. I've been waiting."

Ben stood up, angrier than ever. "For what, gruesome?"

Ghostfreak's upside-down mouth smiled as he released a huge blast of red energy. Ben felt himself slipping again. His mind, fragile to say the least, let open all the doors and pulled out all of the stops. All of the ghostly evil and 10-year-old entered each other.

_**------------------------------------**_

Ben walked back into the room slowly and apprehensively. Cold and confused stares were received from both Gwen and Max, who were now both standing upright in front of him.

Max, whose loving and appreciative warm emotions were heavily settled by his suspicions with Ben. Max moved jerkily; Ben walked slowly and steadily, very much unlike his usual slouching stance. He seemed unsure yet determined, where Ben was usually more active and alive. This Ben stared at the two with a look of pure confusion. "What's going on, guys?"

Gwen opened her mouth to say something smart.

It was at that point many things happened at once.

The first thing, quite obviously, was Ghostfreak's sudden attack on Ben's mind.

Ben clutched his head and screamed in agony, falling to the floor. Gwen and Max quickly jumped down onto the floor to comfort him. Both of their eyes met with his for just one second as they flashed a lime green.

A look of pure elation spread across Ben's face as he grinned at his two favorite people to see. The smile, as before, quickly faded and his eyes faded to a blood red and a sinister smile spread across his – their – face.

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**_Not much development here, a general filler to say the least. Review please and tell me where I need to improve! Next chapter will come soon. For those who are wondering, by the way, the story is going to be going for a long while. The end of the G-B battle will not be the end of _Infection.**

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	8. Mixed and Matched

**Chapter Eight: Mixed, Matched, and In Between**

**Story Disclaimer: **Ben 10 and any of its related characters are not my property

**Story Claimer:** I owned and have created all of the events and occurrences within the confines of this story.

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**_Yay, we're here, we're here, we're here, we're here! Whoopee!_**

_**Chapter Eight has finally arrived, and much later than I expected. At least I was determined to get it up tonight!**_

_**The story is truly deepening and, yes, this section (arc? part?) is ending soon.**_

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Weariness. Pain. Aches. Confusion. Evil. Angst…

A splitting headache rode through his mind like a toddler on a merry-go-round, sans the giggling.

Thoughts continuously passed through his cracked consciousness.

Ben's eyes fluttered open. The scene was blurry and unfocused. Abstract blends of blue, green, and orange faded into view.

He heard his own voice echo through his mind. "_And it's all mine, now."_

Ben took a mental double-take. The ten-year-old reached up with his right arm and rubbed his temple.

Slowly, Ben's senses came back into focus. Tingling warmth surrounded him, thankfully replacing the eerie cold echoing inside him.

Moistness entered the air as well, intensifying the heat. It was at this point he realized he was outside. Ben Tennyson slowly eased out of his position on his back. He sat up, crossing his legs as he did, he realized, when he was in preschool.

"_What… happened? Man, I feel like dirt…_" Ben shook his head. Strangely, his… own voice interrupted him. It sounded stronger, more powerful. "But you're fine, now. Get up and get going."

Now confused more than ever, Ben Tennyson stood up and moved around. Something was off, he thought.

"What would give you that idea?" he said to himself. Ben was baffled. "Uh… that would. That's not normal; talking to myself."

Now, he thought, I am seriously messed up. The persistent voice of himself, he again realized, broke in. "No way, that's stupid, Ben."

The ten-year-old was now seriously freaked out. Confused, he shouted inside his mind, "Stop that!" His eyes flashed and the boy puffed out his chest and hissed, "Stop what?"

The voice sounded scarily familiar, and Ben remembered in an instant. "Ghostfreak!" his mind almost screamed. His own voice replied with a sarcastic, "Who?"

Ben's brow furrowed and he took and action stance. "Get out of my head!"

His voice innocently responded with a, "What are you talking about? Or as you would say…" Ghostfreak then dropped the tone he stole from Ben's conscience. "… 'But you can't be here! I am you!'". This line was spoken in an ugly falsetto, playing on Ben's headache more than ever.

Ben twisted his arm around, trying to punch himself without realizing it. "Why… won't… you… get… out!"

Ghostfreak assumed control of his body and began to talk. "Because, stupid boy, we are one in the same…"

Ben took control back and tried to punch himself again as Ghostfreak continued to annoy the boy.

The blue-shirted girl watched out of the small, plastic window. Her arms were crossed, and a worried look would have been on her face if Ben hadn't started punching himself; she was chuckling softly. She couldn't help wonder what, if anything was going to happen next.

She watched her wacky cousin get up off the ground and start looking round in awkward directions.

He then started talking… to nobody. Gwen's brow rose like a plume of smoke from a factory.

Ben's face darted from one direction to the other rapidly, with him shouting in different tones. At one point, he literally whirled from one side of the clearing to the other, shouting profanities and shaking his fist into the air.

She was worried for her cousin, as was her grandfather, studying some obscure monitor in the corner.

_**------------------------------------**_

An icky sucking sound reverberated around the somewhat cramped lab as the beast pushed himself from his desk to the wall in a floating seat. It landed there with a muffled bump. For some odd reason, this alien, who descended from a long line of ancestors who were constantly in motion, pushed himself back and forth to ease (a) his pounding migraine, (b) seething anger, (c) his regret, and (d) his fear of death.

His partner was trying to find the controls to the airlock, trying to fix at least one problem for himself.

It was then when one plasma screen on the far side of the room crackled, oddly, a beam of static, and focused to a dull red glow. A crackling could be heard.

"Hello, my… friends." A voice spat into the room via surrounding speakers. The voice seemed oddly familiar to the technicians, yet it was filled with a young lust and hope. It was easily masked with anger, sarcasm, and pure evil. Simply stated, the voice sounded like some kind of youthful villain.

The newest of the three people ran up to the console, speaking into what seemed like thin air. "Ben?"

The mysterious voice chuckled. "Please, I am as far from that idiotic child as possible. Don't you recognize me… my imprisoners?"

Ben Tennyson laughed, lacing this outburst with a full blast of his evil. "I can hear your fear..." Ghostfreak stopped one of the technicians who were just beginning to pipe up, by dropping the evil tone. "I just wanted to notify you dorks that once this puny planet is mine… **_ahem_**… ours… I'm coming for you three." What an odd combination of personalities... and vocabularies.

The first and second of the group gaped at the monitor. The problem hit them full circle: sure, the Galactic Federation would kill them without a blink if they didn't get the Omnitrix, but this was worse: a ten-year-old/murdering alien hybrid was out to get them.

The screen faded to black as the first of the aliens gulped. His partner began to weep, screaming, "What do we do? What do we do!" hysterically. The other began to rub at his head frantically, muttering something.

_**------------------------------------**_

The old man stood, hunched, over the glossy screen. Entries and words flashed by his eyes at a mile a minute.

Max Tennyson was not only worried and thinking, but he was getting pissed at the fact that somebody from his op center had the nerve to replace the computers in his RV.

Anyway, like I said, entries were rapidly popping up and Grandpa Max was searching for any kind of answer.

It was, as that whole summer had been; mind-numbingly bewildering, to say the least. Combining with his fear, caring, and frustration, a lovely little bubble decided to pop up at that moment reminding him to activate within thirty days. "Damn you," he thought, resisting the heavy urge to throw the thing at Ben and solve all of their problems, resulting instead in a nasty eye twitch.

Needless to say, nothing he or any of his partners had encountered had anything to do with an Ectonurite managing to mix and match its mind with a human boy. Nonetheless, a rotund window opened, with a message and a somewhat startled picture.

"Max, haven't seen you on in a while! What are you looking for?"

Getting more frustrated every passing second, he hastily typed in a response. "Starting just a moment ago, nothing. Got any tips on separating an Ectonurite's consciousness from… say, a ten-year-old boy?"

The reply was simple and honest. "Why?"

"Well, it… kind of… happened. To my grandson, Ben."

"Really? Is it evil… wait, never mind, strike that, what Ectonurite isn't evil?"

"No kidding, that's our problem."

"Okay, then, what's going on with you?"

"This isn't the time."

"Tell that to a guy who isn't physically owned by the Galactic Federation."

Max rolled his eyes at this. "Alright, fine, everything's good except," he took the time to find the Caps Lock for this, "MY GRANDSON IS PHYSICALLY BONDED WITH AN ALIEN!"

It took a minute for the response to come. "Okay, now, Max, three things: (1) lay off the alien thing and the caps lock, they both hurt, (2) I'll look into it and see what I can do, and (3) just keep the kid away from any major cities and it'll all work out in the end."

Max angrily started to pound at the keys, "I think that situation is…" but was interrupted by a message that said something on the terms of, "Hey, genius, the person you wanted to send this message left. Go away."

Max jumped as he felt a hand on his shoulder. Behind him was Gwen.

"Well, Grandpa, what now?"

A sheepish look came across the former Plumber's face as he began to rub the back of his neck. "Er… keep him away from… big… cities?"

_**------------------------------------**_

Millions of miles away, things were finally getting serious.

On a hardened plasma desk, three creatures of separate species sat down and plotted.

"How about we just extract the human's mind and destroy the rest?"

This received stares of infinite "What?"-ness. One of them began with a thinking, "Well…", but was interrupted by a shout of, "Are you CRAZY?"

The speaker shrugged and leaned back into his chair. "Track record: Nine for you guys, negative six point seventy-eight for me…" he informed, taking a swig of some kind of toxic swill.

"Alright, Captain Optimistic, let's lay down what we know."

"The Ectonurite is mixed with the boy…"

"…ghostliness…"

"…Omnitrix…"

"… and all."

"Alright, good start, and…"

"…we need to split them up…"

"…preferably from up here and…"

"…we're all doomed if we don't fix it soon."

One of them stood up, a surprising feat because he actually had no legs, and gurgled into the stale air of the lab, "Wait! There's a split mechanism just for this!"

Baffled, the two technicians shouted simultaneously. "Huh?" Their looks oozed, "Why the hell did we not know this?!"

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Yeah… that's it. That's the chapter, hopped you like it. Even more of a filler and buildup than the last one, but the next chapter, I promise, will be the big event. You see, Be… oh, wait, I can't tell you that! Wahahahahaha!

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	9. Separation Anxiety

**Chapter Nine: Separation Anxiety**

**Disclaimer: **Ben 10 and any of its related characters are not my property; however all of the original events and occurrences within this story are of my own creation.

_**We'll save some room and condense this…**_

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_**Well, were at chapter nine. This is the big event, according to my numerous responses. Let's get to it.**_

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Having your mind physically mixed with another's is very weird. First of all, none of your thoughts are private. Second, body is virtually a puppet to whichever half wants to do its work. Third, you become a lot less attached to yourself as you usually feel.

Ben Tennyson was having trouble simply grasping it all. He understood to mixing and matching part; that came to him after his own mind denied it several times. He didn't have much time to think about it, after all, because a strange impulse was telling him to go back into the city.

However, he had no time to even begin acting, as he was soon tackled in a pure football fashion that would have made a seasoned player cry with incompetence.

Seconds later, a ripped sheet bound the boy to a wooden chair.

"How do we know he's Ben?" Gwen asked, nervous.

"We don't," her grandfather responded tentatively.

The ten-year-old whipped a pleading look at his two relatives, secretly grinning under the gag.

_**------------------------------------**_

A list of debugging functions scrolled across the opaque black screen. Over his shoulder hovered his two colleagues, looking at every word that went by. They were starting to believe that this yet-unnamed partner was insane. He somehow detected that feeling from the two and began to explain.

"I know you two probably think I'm nuts…"

One of his partners interrupted, "….and, as of now, a mind reader…"

The speaker smiled and continued, "But I know what's going on. You two remember how the core of the transformation engine operated, right?"

"Of course!" one shouted. "We reverse-engineered it!"

"Than you of course remember how the transformation works."

The other technician sighed boredly. "Combine the basic DNA from the selected alien with the host's genetic structure, temporarily overwriting it while keeping the original structure in backup. And…?"

"…and how does that have anything to do with splitting up the nightmare team?"

He smiled with his odd grin again. "Our evil genius had the nerve to store the leftovers from his and the boys combination in an empty slot in the Omnitrix's memory."

His partners shrugged and widened their eyes, urging him to continue.

"Don't you see? If we trigger a transformation into a random body like you me and Stubby over there did this morning, the combined mind the boy mixed with the alien will be stored in the backup sector instead of the original way which stores the DNA in that sector. It's directly prior to the storage he has already filled with the humans and his own leftovers. All we have to do is switch one part of the mind with the other and naturally let it run out and restore the boy's mind into his body and vice versa with the ghost. "

A surprised smile spread across the face of the interloper, only to be wiped away a second later. "Bad idea."

The plotter was quickly pulled out of his state of self-appreciation to the words just said, turning around and shooting an icy glare at the crystalline alien. The mercenary snorted at the speaker's attempt at intimidation. "Ah, yes, genius, either it'll work how you want, or the Ectonurite will just go back in the human and have complete freaking control with no strings attached! Sounds like a winning plan to me, only with 50 more chance of us being screwed!"

"What do you suggest, then?"

The speaker sat down heavily in a chair. Happy to finally be in the spotlight, he began, "Well, you see…"

_**------------------------------------**_

"I'm not sure what's going to happen, " Max Tennyson throatily said, millions of miles below, on a completely unrelated note.

"It's not like he…it…can try anything else," His granddaughter uneasily spoke. At another thought, she nervously cracked a smile. "I mean, Ghostfreak has only stole Ben's body on, what, three levels. It can't get any worse. "

She leaned against the paint-coated, metallic wall of the RV. "Err…right, Grandpa?"

A very light hiss came from the opposite site of where the two were standing. It was hardly noticeable among the birds twittering and bugs buzzing, but after the events of the morning, the Tennysons had become very observant.

"Not more…" the younger relative moaned, rolling her eyes.

A large blast accompanied by dusty smoke rolled through the clearing like a nuclear bomb. The cloud settled to reveal, for about the ninth time that day, Ben Tennyson, floating in the humid air while smirking sarcastically. "Oh, and I thought our summer together was just getting good, Gwen!"

Both Gwen and Max threw their shoulders back in a defensive stance. _Definitely not Ben_, Max thought.

The boy smiled again, clasping his hands together as they began to glow a sickly orange. "Because, its the plan!" His tone changed to a deeper, more sinister one. "Oh so correct, Ben…" The response to that, though, was unexpected. "Get…out…of…me…AAUGH!" The youth fell to the ground, unleashing the orange ball of light growing in his hands into the air. Ben grunted and continued to shout as a surge of electricity was heard and a green ray emitted from his right arm. The lime green face rotated until the insignia whirled in a circle of light.

A loud explosion discharged heavily in the air once more. What came out, this time, was more baffling and freaky than ever.

_**------------------------------------**_

"Ugh, what happened to me?" Ben held his eyes shut. He didn't want to resume things just yet. He felt nothing. He was numb. The last thing he could remember was floating. Then, a thought came to him. _The Omnitrix started!_ _And, then...what?_ He continued to will his eyes shut.

It was at that point he opened his eyes. Everything was fuzzy. He tried moving his arms. They felt...different. Different than before. They felt...normal.

A sound played through his ears like a wave splashing. This time he squeezed his hands. They felt different this time, too. Ben tried moving his legs. Different, too. He tried his feet.

He was back in his own body.

Then, to his surprise, he was kicked sharply in his side.

**_------------------------------------_**

His large, foreboding figure filled with anger like a cup under a faucet. His hands balled up and his legs crouched. The aqua-colored figure leaped out of his seat. He dived on to the man next to him in a feat that could have propelled a cruise boat a few yards under water. From his rectangular came a furious shriek. "YOU…IDIOT!" His arms grabbed onto his victim's neck, throttling it. He banged his opponent's metallic head against the cold floor in between shouts. "YOU…bang…COMPLETE…bang…AND…bang…UTTER…bang…BRAINLESS…bang…MORON! …bangbangbang." His opponent's eyes boggled as his face shone purple, air failing contact to his mind.

**_------------------------------------_**

Dang, that chapter was weaker than I would have thought. Alright, there'll be a new chapter by the end of the week. I'm sorry this chapter kind of sucked, so feel free to lose faith in me. I have great ideas as concepts, it's just hard to lead up to and write them. That new episode on Friday isn't helping, either. I might have to do some edits. Anyway, please R&R.

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	10. Awakening

**Chapter Ten: Awakening**

Second Revision

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_**Alright, so the last chapter didn't turn out as well as I would've thought. Here we go, then…**_

_**Oh, by the way, this goes out to Overactive Mind, my sole reviewer for the past two chapters. Also, I might've lied in that review reply a little bit…**_

**_And, as always, Ben 10 and any of its related characters are not my property; however, all of the original events and occurrences within this story are of my own creation. Also, this chapter (along with a minor part in chapter nine) has had parts rewritten. If you have read it after September 2, 2006, don't worry._**

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Not many things passed through the girl's mind as waved away to dust any dirt floating arounder. One was wondering why this was happening today, and the other was an estimation of how many explosions there have been in this particular city today.

She wasn't sure, though, whether it was all a dream. Maybe just this day, she thought. Maybe the whole summer. It was that weird, it came to her.

The scenery, obviously, wasn't much more different than before, so I'll leave that be.

Dust still swirled like it had some important thing to say, while Gwen was coughing and hacking the stuff out of her lungs. It cleared away more slowly than ever. She couldn't, and, responsively, didn't, identify who it was huddled on the ground.

Seconds later she did, so she swiftly walked up to it and gave it a sharp kick in the side.

_**------------------------------------**_

The strong-handed extraterrestrial continued to wring them across the metallic body of his opponent. "You… are… the… stupidest… life… form… I…. have… ever… met!"

The third wheel of the group sat, halfway in awe, halfway amused.

In between taking breaks between killing his partner and banging his head against the ground, he glanced at the crystal display screen next to them. He then had a surge of anger and returned to his previous occupation.

Their situation wasn't going too well, if you hadn't noticed.

_**------------------------------------**_

Ben, obviously, didn't expect the kick in his right. His eyes focused, regardless, on the figure hovering over him. Glowering toward him was Gwen. He growled, "What was that for?"

She gasped and kneeled to the dusty ground. "Ben?"

The boy sat up.

Yellow light spun through the clearing for a split second. "Gwen… what… happened?"

Her brow furrowed and a frown formed on her face. "Well… I'm not sure."

"Seriously? You! I mean, come on, Gwen, you?" The heavy glare received made him change the subject.

"So… why do you have a look on your face like you saw a ghost… or something?"

Her face became unsure again. She gulped apprehensively. "Yeah, you see…"

Ben was surprised by the amazingly simple action she just ordered him to do. He popped up on his legs and, needless to say, was very happy.

"So? What were you worried about, Gwen?"

"Well, just, about today… I mean, how do I know you're not Ghostfreak or something. I mean, back there in the city, you were more of an alien than usual." Starting out concerned, Gwen over-optimistically ended the sentence.

That made Ben angry. With his full spirit and voice, he shouted at his cousin. "You think this is funny? You think I AM FUNNY! Look at me! I'm myself again! I mean, I could've been stuck like that... for good! You're being paranoid, you know that?" He shoved his finger angrily into her face. "How do I know you're not being taken over or something?"

A look of indecision flashed across her soft features and slowly began, "O..kay… point taken."

The fourth scream of pain, agony, or anger that day sounded from Ben when a small plank was pounded into his lower torso.

_**------------------------------------**_

Lukewarm peace came eventually to the observation deck of the lab. They all slowly stopped trying to murder each other and worked to make sense of the situation. Camera feeds continuously played across the floating screen of multiple scenes below. Rows of feedback continued to record from the Omnitrix and Ben they distanced themselves across the room and study what was going on.

**_------------------------------------_**

Pain was the only thing occupying his heavily wracked mind. He opened his eyes yet again to see his very own grandfather above him, pouting irately as Gwen rushed to his side. As Gwen began to talk, Max's glare softened into surprise. He rose to be immediately comforted by his relatives.

The embrace was quickly broken apart, though, as a yellow circle of light spread from him outward instantly. An awkwardly deep voice began to talk, seemingly coming from Ben.

"Um… who… are you?"

_**------------------------------------**_

Thousands of miles away began a simultaneous groan to signal the day ever going worse. What they had predicted to come, more or less, from their meddling had arrived.

A deathly stare went from one side of the room to another at the speed of light.


	11. Shivering

**Chapter Eleven: Shivering**

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"Darnit, why now…"

Ben's eyes readjusted to the light as simplistic thoughts like these ran through his mind. The scenery had not at all changed before… but something seemed different. A phrase his art teacher once said floated to the surface. "Perspective…" Something about my perspective… changed, he thought.

He tried to push up onto his arms and legs – and stumbled. However, he didn't fall; he floated, balance continuously faltering. He looked down at his arms – they were scrawny… dark… grey. Air rushed passed him as if it was going through him.

Something, as usual, was off. The sun, more than halfway across the sky, beat down heavily, but Ben didn't feel a thing. The drone of bugs was heavy in the air.

Slowly readjusting to his new form of movement, Ben spun around trees, trees, more trees… and a river. Shaking awkwardly, he moved forward. The lack of legs baffled him; Ben was unsure what he was.

As the river neared, he tried his hardest to lean down and not fall. What he saw, at that point, horrified him. A scream – coupled with a monotone rasp – escaped from nowhere in particular.

_**------------------------------------**_

Both Gwen and Max leaped backwards with impeccable speed. Ben, or someone in his body, shoved his arms outward in some kind of defensive maneuver. His voice, semi-deep in tone and intimidating, still, somehow, mixed with Ben's own, spoke outward towards to the two. "Okay, then… I'll repeat myself… who are you?"

The voice sounded faintly familiar to the Tennysons, who could only guess at this point whatever the hell was going on. Max, mouth dry and half-understanding the situation, spoke up first. "A better question would be who you are!"

The person smirked apprehensively. "Brave life form… you don't know me? How can you not know me?" His defensive guard let down for a moment, and he crossed his arms, holding them at that sides as if he was cold. That stopped as he triumphantly struck his finger into the humid coastal air shouting, "I am the mightiest warrior the galaxy has even seen! Fear my power!" He shoved his arms out farther into the air. The ignorant grin on his face faded as he realized what he intended to happen was not happening. He pulled his arms down and scrutinized them while moving his hands around, testing the air along with parts of his body.

As if the day hadn't been crazy enough, the completely bewildered look on his face had topped it for Gwen. She busted out laughing at her now-confused-looking cousin.

"Does anybody know what's going on?" she said, between airless fits of amusement.

The ten-year-old boy suddenly began to shiver. "… and why it's so freaking cold!"

"He's gone nuts, too!" She giggled louder.

_**------------------------------------**_

He had to admit it. While he was trying his hardest to heavily deny it for the past few hours, the attempt didn't accomplish much it wasn't working well.

It just convinced Ben Tennyson that it was _the _worst day of his life.

For nobody is it familiar or comfortable to be transformed into an alien, temporarily or permanently. The former was all right with Ben; it was the latter that freaked him out so badly.

There was the floating too; that was hard to get used to. He did kind of like the intangibility, though.

"I have to concentrate," he thought, "I'm not going to stay like this. _At least I hope so…_"

He stopped that thought. "I have to find Gwen and Grandpa… and find out how this happened…"

The sun, though, continued to distract him. It didn't feel that bad earlier to him, but now… It was beating down like crazy on him. It almost burned, even. It was then he realized that he needed to find himself…

_**------------------------------------**_

The man grimaced as he hunched over the terminal for the second time that day. In the background, he could faintly hear a conversation going on. "So, what's it like to live on a sun, Ben?" Max ignored the answer as he tried to key in a question.

"So, what, repeat that, Max?" He sighed sarcastically and furiously retyped the sentences he had only just finished.

"I said… I… think… that my grandson has had his conscious self… err… transplanted."

"Do you know where the real Ben is?"

"… No."

"What about the body? What's in it now?"

"We think it's the Omnitrix's resident Pyronite."

"The fiery guy?"

"Yes."

"And how did that happen?"

"That's what I'm asking you."

"Well, it's possible that what happened is a regular thing to the Omnitrix."

"How?"

"…Long story."

"Fine, then. Do any of you up there know what is actually going on?"

"Not really. I keep hearing stories of these three rogues trying to, well…"

"What?"

"Get the Omnitrix back."

"So?"

"Just be careful out there. I have to go."

"Well, it's not very different once you get used to it."

Gwen laid her fist under he chin. "Somehow, I find that hard to believe."

"Why? It's only 5785 kelvins, and that's in the fall. It's only 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit in your world.

Gwen turned around her laptop, it opened to a weather map. "Try 88 degrees Fahrenheit. Right now."

The boy suddenly started shivering again. "Are you serious? How do you live like this?"

Gwen smirked. "We push through. Somehow."

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_**That's it. You know the drill, so go ahead and review! No, seriously, go ahead now. I'll wait.**_

_**Sorry for the update lateness. Oh, and, by the way, I have a great idea for another fic, so look out in the Ben 10 section for the next few weeks!**_


	12. Working with It

**Chapter Twelve: Working with It  
**

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He floated through the seemingly endless void.

Okay, it wasn't endless. Nor was it a void. But, dang, was it lonely. Mainly messed up as well.

He kept getting closer and closer to people; That was what worried him.

_I'm not… even… human anymore. But… what am I?_

Of course, that was when he disappeared.

_**------------------------------------**_

"… So what the heck does that mean?" The girl began to shout, swatting at a mosquito on her cheek in the process.

"Yeah, that's just it. Nobody knows what happening. It's just… the one thing I know is that something's… settling inside him."

"Him as in who?" She couldn't help but keep a sarcastic smirk on her face. It was her natural defense mechanism – humor. Most people do the same thing.

Max rolled his eyes exasperatedly. "This is not the time, Gwendolyn!"

"Fine, then. Just tell me what's really going on. No sugarcoating."

"… Somebody else is interfering with the Omnitrix." He nearly coughed while telling this, rubbing his face with a sweaty palm.

"Well, so we just have to be careful, right?"

"See, well, that's what nobody knows. I mean, it could effect us, or change him, or…"

"…the world's going to end? I mean, come on, what can happen?"

A large whir interrupted the girl as the natural sunlight was replaced with an eerie blue.

_**------------------------------------**_

"Gaah!"

A shout entered into the stark, echoing space as a figure that, frankly, scared the crap out of him, materialized.

"Gaah!"

Another shout entered into the stark, echoing space as a bunch of figures and a surrounding that, frankly, surprised him out of his unstable mind, materialized around him.

"Okay, now this is the worst day of my life," spat a hissing voice.

"Move over, Spock," a previously unseen figure strongly pushed past the gaping creature. He kneeled down to Ben's level, speaking in a clear, deep monotone.

"Hey, kid, do you know who I am?"

The singular pink eye on a swiveling track for a second, and then spoke. "Yeah!" Ben immediately recognized the azure grin. "Hey, it's you, Hoverboard!"

The two other scientists in the room kneeled in as well. "You know him?" "He knows you?"

"In human form…"

"Wait, so this guy is…"

"…the 10-year-old boy who has eluded the grasp of the great galactic empire for so long? Surprise."

One began to smile. "Uh-uhn. This is impossible…" He began to laugh hysterically. "This, this… kid is the one we've been after! No way!"

Ben raspily interrupted, "Hey!"

"Aw, shut it, squirt, whaddaya' gonna' do, phase through me? Bite me!"

A quite annoyingly loud argument began at that point, and Ben gave up and let his mind drift.

"Alright, now that that's settled; WHO WAS THE IDIOT THAT BROUGHT THE KID HERE?"

This was the eruption that Ben was jerked backed to reality with. The others continued to ignore him, so Ben listened in.

One of the two remaining spoke up. "With him here, we have a fighting chance at winning this battle!"

The other spat at him with a refute, "Yeah, he'll help us! Right up until he finds out we're the ones thata…" His voice trailed off as he looked in Ben's direction, eyes widening. "Er…um…hi, there."

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_**Sorry I suck lately… school has my mind on different things.**_


	13. Chatting

**Chapter Thirteen: Chatting**

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**_Continuity is fun! _Infection _is taking place between "Dr. Animo and the Mutant Ray" and "Back with a Vengeance". It has been decided such that the Tennysons are on their way from Florida or New Orleans ("Dr. Animo and the Mutant Ray") to Niagra Falls ("Back with a Vengeance") and stopping on the East Coast for a night or two._**

_**Chappa.**_

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"You're the ones… what?!" The rasp shot across the room.

One of the scientists, the short, portly one, grinned sheepishly with teeth like needles at both the ten-year old Ectonurite and the glaring Petrosapien.

"Um…er…well…we're…the…"

The Mechamorph behind him, who had remained all but shouting until now, spat, "Aw, now, give it up, Aron…"

"Fine, fine… erm… we're the…ones who were assigned to… get the Omnitrix back."

Ben's stubby head swiveled from one person the other. Slowly, his form began to glow red; A deathly, blood red it was that split from the lattices on his skin.

"You… did this to me!? To us?!"

The speaker gulped and weakly responded, "…yes…"

Ben shouted, "I'LL KILL YOU!"

The room erupted in a surge of red.

Millions of miles below, a startlingly insignificant clearing in the middle of a camping resort erupted into the same deadly shade of red.

The three figures, fearing for their lives at this point, were brushed into the back wall like an angry housewife wielding a broom. Electricity bounced through the air.

The scream echoed louder and louder as the three watched his form bulge and reform. The shout grew deeper and deeper.

And it all stopped.

_**------------------------------------**_

The red below was for a totally different reason entirely.

"…So, do you think something's settling now, Grandpa?" The cry of Gwen barely made it over the high-pitched buzz.

His response was stuttered. "…No. It's…m…much…worse."

"How?!"

"Somebody is trying to get us."

"And to think that it was remotely possible I could spend the day relaxing down at the beach!"

_**------------------------------------**_

The alien threw his large, short arms over his head and was just about to roll up into a ball as he realized he wasn't under attack. The lanky character behind him had about done the same, and looked around confusedly.

The scene was almost a cardboard cut-out of the real thing. It stood frozen in time.

A red aura surrounded the picture, which was of an odd, indescribable behemoth raising a pair of huge arms down onto what was, until a second ago, his victims.

"What is this?" the startled soon-to-be-victim panted, trying to keep his thick hand away from leaning on his would-be killer.

The grinning face of one of his partners peeked out from behind the creature. "Oh, sorry, just stopped things for a bit. Bit of an accident."

"Oh…heh heh… well, that's good," his other comrade sighed hysterically.

"What do you mean by 'accident'?!"

"Well, one… I don't like you… and two… I would've loved to see the guy who pissed me off get his butt kicked… and three… we don't want little guy's mind to get hurt." With this last gesture, he pointed a finger at the large creature reaching over him.

"Okay… explain…"

The two partners continued to talk to each other again.

"Remember 'Evil Alien Behemoth' #1?"

"No."

"Big, large, chaotic, amalgamation of the original ten on the Omnitrix?"

"Still no."

His partner groaned. "The guy that almost obliterated the rest of the development sector?"

A stunned look came across his face. "Oh, yeah. That guy. I heard he was in league with Vilgax."

His statement received a few incredulous looks. "Yeah, and I heard Vilgax was frozen in an ice cube."

"All right, whatever, what about him?"

"Okay, then, do you know how he came out?"

"No."

"I thought so. It was from anger… adrenaline, lust, fear, all that stuff. He sucked some of the Omnitrix's power out, so he could turn into them all."

"Yeah, and…"

"…and as one of those aliens, those human things made him completely unstable. Mind and body. We don't want slappy over here to turn into that or we'd be really screwed."

"Oh…so what do we do?"

_**------------------------------------**_

"I wonder who he is now?"

"Well, it can't be any worse than Heatblast…"

"Are you sure of that?"

"Well, no…"

Gwen and Max shot back at each other in whispers inside the rustbucket back on Earth.

The two watched Ben, or, again, whoever was currently occupying his body.

"Fine, you go see." Gwen talked quickly and quietly.

Max shot back, "No, Gwen. You go."

She rolled her eyes and tried one last time. "Hey, Grandpa, how about you go and…"

"…Gwen…"

"Okay, okay, fine…"

She didn't know what to do any more than what to say, wondering how long it would take to uncover his identity.

Just as she was thinking these things, she heard a voice from the table. It was the same voice she expected to be associated with her cousin's body, but with a different tone to it.

"Hello, there." Startled, Gwen jumped nearly an inch into the air.

"Um, er, hi, there… Ben."

"I'm not your cousin," he said, slightly annoyed.

"I know that… how do you?"

Toying with something unseen, he barely looked up as he tossed a pink wallet in her direction. "Picture in your wallet, along with everybody else you've ever met. There's a mirror in the restroom. I think these things out."

_Well, he's definitely not Fourarms, _Gwen thought as she sat down across from him and began to talk.

"So, well, who are you?"

He looked up at that point. Setting down a screwdriver and what looked like a microwave engine, Ben put his head onto his crossed arms replied simply.

"My name is Grey Matter, from Galvan Prime. Currently occupying a human body."

Smiling a little at his side comment, a smirking Gwen got up and walked back to Max.

"Well, that was easy."

"Who is he?"

Imitating the nasally tone flawlessly, she said, "His name is Grey Matter, from Galvan Prime. Currently occupying a human body."

Just as he began taking a breath to respond, Gwen eagerly interrupted, "Can we keep him?"

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_**Sorry, again, this was way late. **_**Infection**_** might go on a little break as I work on **_**Paradox**_**, as my time is limited.**_

_**Please review.  
**_


	14. Wipe

**Chapter Fourteen: Wipe**

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**_Alright, a little sooner than expected here._** **_I really do like my story line going on here… so, simply put… Chapter._**

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"I don't think I like this idea too much."

His deep voice, echoed through the chamber, joined into the slight clatter of machinery parts.

A retort came, stark and clear, in a slightly annoyed tone. "Why, you'd rather have Mr. Chimera here kill us all?"

"Well, er… no…"

"Okay, then."

A slight pop sounded as the speaker sealed a few wires onto the frozen forehead of their would-be murderer.

Next to him stood the arguer, who had just quit staring into the gruesome sneer of their enemy.

The second of the three piped up now, seemingly coming out of his slight shock only minutes before. "So, now… why did squirt pull a mutation on us?"

A response came quickly. "Wanting to kill us was probably a major factor."

The scratchy noise of crystal against crystal sounded as Tetrax interrupted. "It's the power source."

This vexed one of his comrades. "What?"

Though it was hardly noticeable in his form, the crystalline figure rolled his eyes, though the liquid-like mechanical one answered. "The original Prototype had problems making sure it worked whoever it was on. Using the basic core we added on some extensions. Things just to make sure the transformations went smoothly, or make sure they went back again."

"…And this relates…?"

"Let me finish. On the human form, or the basic root of their anthropomorphic body, there were quite some extraordinary problems with the basic runner… which led to us creating an extension for it, too. You see, you couldn't use the same power source on the humans as with others. It completely wipes their brain, like a plasma disc to a magnet."

Aron, the short, angry one, thoughtfully looked on and asked, "So what _did_ you use?"

The Mechamorph continued his soliloquy.

"We had to switch the power source from something they lacked to something they gained. Formerly, their power source was a physical charger… great for me or you," referring his hand to the Petrosapien beside him. "There was something in all the humans – everybody on the –_sapiens_ genus – that there was in abundance. A mental, proverbial power. None of us could explain in… just, there it was."

"So, wait a second, scooter's **mind** powers the Omnitrix?"

Tetrax smirked, wondering how the boy would react to this comment – if he wasn't some evil, chaotic mutation. "You wouldn't think it, but it does."

"And there he was, just because of a stupid mind power source?!" Aron gestured with his stubby arms toward the frozen amalgamation on the other side of the room.

"…Yes." The azure alien stood up and walked to the other side of the facility. His eyes glowed in the semi-darkness of the area. Pointing at Ben's hideously disfigured arm, the testers noticed something that had never happened before. The Omnitrix was there on his arm, fading from sickly yellow to a soothing green as they spoke.

"This is still here."

The other two sneered, one sarcastically spitting, "We can see that!"

"You still don't get it, do you?"

The Pelarota coughed, sounding very much like a sick shark that could talkl. "Erm… No. Keep talking."

The crystal creature suddenly got annoyed, and shouted out his very simple answer.

"The Omnitrix won't think he's human by the time it restarts!" He suddenly started stomping all across the room, talking with his diamond hands as he went. "…And there lies our solution. We try to run it, it tries to use our original power source, and he has a quick mind wipe. All we have to do," now making an extremely bizarre hand gesture, "is turn him human again. Problem solved."

His partners gazed, baffled. One began to mumble, "Good…"

He, however, was stopped short as a rumble broke into his grumble… as their good friend had decided to come back to life at that moment.

Needless to say, the conditions on Earth were much more… lighthearted.

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As time went on, the giggling and snickering ascended to full-on gut-buster laughing, which quickly descended, as more and more breath was needed, to cackling crazily. Within moments, she was on the floor, rolling around, receiving minor carpet burns.

This episode is notable, as it was, because the person involved rolling around on the floor of the vehicle had just broken a record involving laughter. However, this fit was slowly stopped as a shadow, clearly angry, even without facial features, fell over Gwen Tennyson.

"You know, you can bust a lung doing that." The voice was had many tones in one, including anger, annoyance, and monomania. Ignoring the sneer beginning to roll across the face of her pseudo-cousin, she whispered, "Sorry," and, still grinning, stood up and brushed herself off.

She began speaking again. "Sorry, it's just…"

"What?"

"No, nothing."

"Tell me."

Gwen smirked again. "No, just you… I don't know, Ben just never really was a math person…"

She grinned and gestured toward the stack of scratchily written papers.

Her pseudo-cousin grinned back in a bizarre way, pointing to his arms. "I can see that. I'm just not accustomed to being," he looked around momentarily, "…five foot, one…"

"I guess you would feel weird if you quadrupled your size in two seconds."

"More like eight and a half times."

Gwen expected him to jump back into the math work on the table, but they continued to talk to each other.

"So you're… disoriented?"

Ben put his hand to his forehead. "Kind of."

Gwen was clearly starting to like this. "So, you want to go outside? The beach is only a few blocks away."

Grey Matter grinned slyly. "Why, acid raid and pollution hasn't killed you all yet?"

Gwen giggled. "No. But close."

As things always occur in this aspect, Ben's eyes glowed a bright orange for a second and fell to the floor. Gwen did the same, seconds later.

What a hell of a scene Max Tennyson walked into.


	15. Putting it Lightly

**Chapter Fifteen: Putting it Lightly**

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_**Alright, I'm concentrating now on this story. So, here you go. I guess that's all I need to say.**_

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Lox Von did not like her job. The proof for which, she simply refers to, is a widely-used proverb by the humans on the planet she was currently revolving around. This saying was, "Don't shoot the messenger." As a messenger for the most hated (and most feared) empire currently in control of the galaxy, her life was attempted many times. Therefore, Lox had maintained a healthily cynical view on things.

She was a lizard-like creature, by our standards, and was short, compared to most of who (or what) she met in her duties.

Lox knew a lot about politics, as detailed her educational degree. In fact, she gained a lot more knowledge than she intended to, working for the empire.

She, in fact, knew much about the army, and, in particular, their leader. She worshipped him, to be frank. Lox Von was very much a team player for Vilgax. She was under great distress at this time, therefore, to know that her ruler was currently floating frozen in a block of ice somewhere in the Tuctonic sector.

Lox knew that the Resistance would win almost instantly win their battle if the discovery of his disappearance had been made. Specifially, they would win on the fact of finding out exactly how his disappearance had occurred – this, she knew, would convert even the most loyal subject of her great ruler to a rebellious – well, rebel. It was, in this sense, she knew that they must win the forefront of the war; if their empire won, they could announce that Vilgax had died horribly, and the next in line could take place. The oligarchy of the galaxy would fall apart eventually, but those involved would prefer to drag it out as long as it could go.

That's where the Omnitrix came in – at least, according to her understanding. It was their secret weapon – a juggernaut – that would ultimately end the war. It could eradicate any enemy force, infiltrate any species, and win any war. All you needed was an easily-obtainable genetic sample, and the machine took care of the rest. The owner of this miraculous invention could become any creature in the galaxy with the push of the button and the twist of a face.

And their weapon – their juggernaut – was in the hands of a ten year old human boy. A mere larvae of the arrogant scum of the galaxy. What a waste of air.

Thus, Lox had commissioned a team – in Vilgax's name – to get their ultimate tool back. This team – this supposedly masterful team of professional scientists – had been mostly dead or missing within a few weeks. She had suspicions of her own, but it wasn't her job to share them. According to Lox's knowledge, there were only three left actively working on her special project. She had been looking for a few newer members for the last few days, but the search was troublesome, and she had trouble finding the original team of workers.

It was this team of three – in a lone, inaccessible sector of the space station – that Von was delivering a message to at this moment. She came to the shining, chrome door with a stop. You see, the usual silence that inhabited most of the spaceship was now completely destroyed.

A loud cacophony echoed behind the door.

Lox decided not to get involved with this, and but her back to the cool, metal wall of the corridor. She slowly slid to the floor as she waited for the din to halt.

Lox Von decided, as it ended, to enter, regardless of situation. She scanned her identification disc, and the door slid open with a hiss.

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Max Tennyson was trained for anything, as his former job entailed. This was caused partly by an extremely well-done training in the army, and, later, with the Plumbers. In short, Max claimed he was prepared for any situation.

But not this one.

As soon as he witnessed the scene of both of his grandkids falling to the floor, glowing in an orange aura, the aging man jumped to their side.

They were both fine, as numerous tests resulted. They were just – not there. Like a light bulb missing inside a lamp.

His eyes quickly filled up with tears, sweat rolled down the small of his back; the days' stress was getting to him. He refused to get emotional over this; everything was going to be okay. He knew where being emotional could get him.

He looked up and wiped his eyes with his fingers. At that moment, he spotted the arm of his grandson – the person always teeming with life, though not always his own, until just a few seconds ago. On his arm sat the Omnitrix, that he knew. It glowed a sickly yellow.

Just then, something clicked in Max Tennyson's mind. He had not recognized it until just now; the colors threw him off. He clearly recognized the insignia now sitting on the arm of his grandson: the source of all this trouble.

Clenching both his teeth and his fist, Max shouted out a name to nobody in particular, probably addressing who he mentioned. He ran back to the room he had just exited from, growling angrily. "Unio!"

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"Dammit, Anon, just shoot him!"

The voice was surprisingly clear among the throng of rumbles, shouts, and bangs. The response was just as surprisingly clear.

"With what?"

A deeper, angrier voice interjected, "A sedative, genius!"

Another voice broke into the conversation, spouting a nonsensical string of screams. "RAWRGHHH!"

The Pelarota, Anon, ducked as a plasma chair flew over his head, and shouted, "I have a better idea!"

Demonstrating a well-practiced maneuver, the large creature folded his arms across his body, creating a giant, yellow ball. Bowling-style, the alien rotated a few times and then bounced across, straight into the head of the rampaging Ben Tennyson. The lab shook with the impact as the behemoth hit the floor, clearly knocked out, for about the millionth time that day.

Panting heavily, Hoverboard ran over to the location where Anon was unraveling. "Well, that was… slightly less disastrous than I expected."

Anon, panting as well, replied, "What did you expect?"

"Death."

"Interesting prospect."

Hoverboard offered his diamond arm out to aid his comrade in getting up, and asked, "Where's Jell-O?"

His question was quickly answered as their colleague flew over, making an annoying squelching sound. "I'm here; I was just checking on something."

The Pelarota ignored him and walked over to their chimera friend. Hoverboard lingered for a moment, flashing a suspicious look.

Kicking the lifeless reddish-orange mass unconscious next to him lightly, Anon moaned, "So what were we planning to do to skippy here?"

The diamond-headed being responded tentatively to the green and black creature standing next to him with a groan. "Just grab that machine on the desk. I've been working on it."

The gadget was smallish, shaped like an old-fashioned professional camera, and had a wired cap leading off. It was black and orange, like a badly-done Halloween toy.

"So, this just… sucks… right? You know, mind and stuff."

After ignoring the question for a few seconds, one of his partners answered. "Pretty much. All we have to do is clear it out and send it down," pointing downwards, "back to Earth."

The gel-like creature responded. His voice, as always, sounded as if over a bad telephone connection. "Wait… how does this have to do with us getting the Omnitrix back from the kid?"

Hoverboard brushed off the remark incredulously. "We have a few more tricks up our…proverbial sleeves. Now shut up and help us with this."

The group lifted the carcass of their friend long enough to slip on the helmet. One of them hit a switch and began a show of lights, almost.

The body of the beastly mutation vibrated slightly and colors flashed in and out of the machine and the body.

Less than a minute later, the troupe stood surrounding a diaphanous screen, mulling over information.

A panel of code lay to the right, while the contents, oddly, of Ben Tennyson's mind were laid out in a semi-organized view to the left.

A slight hiss sounded, but none of the space geeks paid any attention.

With out any warning, a female voice rang out into their ears. "So, my 'crack' team, what's this?"

All three of the scientists jumped about a foot into the air and spun around, staring straight into the eyes of their boss. "Lox!"

"Nice response, men." Her voice was suave, smooth even.

Not to be outdone, Hoverboard began to try and be just as suave right back. He leaned, unexpectedly, onto the console behind him.

"Erm…yeah. _So…_what are _you_ doing here?"

Unbeknownst to any of those involved, buttons were being randomly pressed like crazy as they talked to the female alien.

"I'm here to ask you about your… project."

"…what about it?" Asked the still-unnamed scientist.

"Well, we're all in the bit of a bind, _Unio_."

Through those random commands pressed by a stray arm, the panels on the screen closed and, on the underside of the gigantic space station, a small, rotund dish beamed out the altered data somewhere random… random indeed.

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Most people, for their whole lives, stay in their own bodies. In this sense, most people become accustomed to the feeling of being attached to their own body. Therefore, taking the mind away from the body is really hard – not on the doing it itself, but becoming accustomed to the lack of the "your own body" sensation.

Both Ben and Gwen Tennyson woke up lacking this sensation.

Waking up, first of all, was a feat in itself, that both Ben and Gwen realized. To them, it felt like flying in from a faraway place.

In a way, it was.

Gwen, as always, woke up quickly and without effort. Ben, as always, was the antithesis of such. Both, as always, realized something was wrong immediately.

First, I'll talk about Gwen. She fluttered her eyes open, and looked around. Bringing up her arm, Gwen's left hand massaged her head. As she did every time she woke up, she walked straight to the bathroom, meanwhile grunting to Max.

Next, comes Ben. He almost followed the same path of action. However, he noticed a huge discrepancy immediately as he rubbed his hand to his head. Beginning to stand up, Ben noticed his reflection in a pot on the stove. That's when he heard a scream. Female, high-pitched: it was hard to believe it came from him.

That's when Ben and Gwen ran into each other in the hallway, both screaming wildly.


	16. Thinking About It

**Chapter Sixteen: Thinking About It  
**

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**_Did you read the last chapter? No, you obviously did not. I got no reviews! 'Ya hear that? _No _reviews! So, maybe you were busy. Maybe you were just lazy… but this story's better than that, right?_**

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"Okay, let's think this out rationally." The Hawaiian-shirted man coughed – halfway confused and halfway amused. His strong hands rested on the shoulders of two children, trying to calm the mirth of one and the hyperventilation of the other.

The events of these moments were, quite frankly, scarring for life.

It was, essentially, how the day's situation descended further into chaos.

Ben Tennyson, or what looked like him, was rapidly gasping for breath as an unclean hand clutched his disheveled hair.

Gwen Tennyson, or what looked like her, was cackling so hard that it had the same effect of gasping for breath.

Max Tennyson, which was definitely him, on the other hand, was extremely unsure of what to do. He looked slowly from one grandchild to the other, taking in their sudden emotion. He decided to take an action of inaction, and therefore waited patiently for the gasping and heaving for breath to die down. After a few minutes, peace resumed, but only for a second, as one look at each other started it all up again.

The mindlessness on both ends almost led to a fit of crying, but the children's grandfather firmly stopped it as the cacophony entered its tenth minute.

"I said… let's think this out… rationally."

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The odd-looking caravan slowly sauntered down the tube of metal. Once in a while, one of the four stumbled, confusing the rest of the line.

All of the men in the line were nervous. They felt small. All of them felt that way when they were in the face of power – power that could declare their immediate death, that which they definitely knew.

Thus, Lox Von was smiling, an extremely rare occurrence. She liked power. But, for now, that's beside the point.

The reason the group stumbled every once in a while was that one of the four was not paying attention to his apparently clumsy steps. He was, unbeknownst to the leader of the congregation, closely inspecting a miniature panel on held in his hard, smooth arms.

He received a glance from the Petrosapien looming in front of him, who then fully turned around to view the statistics. In a deep voice, the rotund, solid creature that was holding the tablet whispered frantically to the leaning alien. "Look what you did, Rocky!"

The man of diamond barely turned his voice down to a whisper for responding. "What do you mean me?!"

He opened his mouth in a frown, revealing two rows of shiny, sharp teeth. His eyes signaled his clear anger. "Guess who was trying to be all 'suave and sexy' and fricking sat on the console. The console that, guess what!, was controlling all that we would win for back on Earth! His name sounds like a sport device and…"

"…okay, okay, I get it," Hoverboard responded, raising his hands in a defeated gesture. "But what did I do?"

"I don't know, but you sure screwed something up."

The whispering became slightly louder as they continued. "Aww, hey…What's that icon… check on it!"

The icon in question was a small, round one. It was a greenish-yellow circle ringed with black.

Anon responded sheepishly, "Oh, um, that? That's the… er… heh-heh…total… status… window."

His counterpart raised a diamond-composed brow and frowned at the incompetence of the person next to him. As he made a motion to touch the panel, it squirmed in his stubby arms and he almost dropped it. The smooth, pale white surface of the amazingly complicated machine faded black, and circuit-like patterns gleamed over it.

The third of the group had discreetly joined the conversation, and led it from there. A dialog box shined on the small screen, reading as if the melding alien were talking itself. "Want me to help?"

The controls took on a mind of their own as it spun across the interface, opening the panel signaled by the aforementioned icon. It began to read off statistics in a logical fashion, playing across the minds of all three closely watching.

The diamond-plated creature said, "Okay, I still don't see how I screwed up so badly."

Another box opened on the screen in response. "Alright, suave man, look at this."

The screen of data jumped to another one as the liquid, smooth body of the Mechamorph separated from the computer.

"Right there," Anon redundantly stated, pointing to the obvious stream of data on the screen.

Hoverboard's jaw dropped as he read the contents of the window. "Aw, gross!" was his response. After a few moments, he continued. "So…I see where I…kind of…okay, totally, screwed up. But what's the matter; this could be what we've been waiting for!"

The sharp teeth of the Pelarota reflected again in the neon light of the corridor. "Do you even understand what was involved in that kind of screw-up? Do you even **know** how badly messed up this is? You have no clue!"

"And why should we worry about them? All we want is our prize and then we're done for."

The mechanical voice of Unio broke in at this point. "Here's why: I'm going to die sometime in the next few days, and it's either going to be one of two completely pissed off humans, or it's going to bee…"

He was cut off by a female voice. "Me?"

Surprised the caravan was still walking in perfect step through this whole confrontation, the cut-off speaker slowly turned his head up to the lizard-like alien smirking to his left. This was the first time the group realized that she had a plasma gun in her right hand, coupled with a lava blaster in the left.

"Now, men, these are not the only implements of death I have. You see, I am very resourceful. I can make sure you that you are in the most pain universally possible before you die."

The diamond creature's jaw dropped even further at the sting of these death threats.

"However, you will live if you comply. Thus, I suggest that you all turn around and get back in line, before I kill you."

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Ben, still regaining control of his breath, put his hands up in a gesture of acceptance. Sounding normal as ever, he said, "Alright, Grandpa. I just have one question," and, screaming out and pointing outward from himself, "Who is that and why do they look just like me?!!!"

Gwen retained a straight face for about two seconds before busting out again with laughter. Max, successfully keeping a straight face, stopped his grandchildren again. "That's enough, er, um… You know what, let's just see what has happened here in the last few minutes." Rubbing his hand thoughtfully on his chin, Grandpa Max said, "Okay, now, on the count of three, I want the both of you to slowly, calmly say your full names." He took a deep breath. "One… two… three…"

Before he could pronounce the "th" in three, two voices shouted. A feminine one shouted, "Benjamin Maxwell Tennyson!" A masculine one screamed, "Gwendolyn Victoria Tennyson!"

Max could only just squeeze his mouth shut with his hand to stop a stream of laughter from coming out, just as a back-and-forth argument, complete with fingers-in-faces and waving fists, of "No you aren't, I am!"

The two began to get slightly more violent, pushing each other back and forth dramatically while screaming out at each other as well.

Soon after, Gwen tried to take a swing at her cousin. However, as her fist drove toward Ben's face, he cried out, telling Gwen to stop. "Wait, no! This is useless!" Gwen stopped for a second, and then, asked, "Why?" incredulously and pulling her fist back.

Ben scoffed. "You can't be that dumb all the time, can you?" Gwen paused. "We're in each others' bodies, genius!" Gwen's eyes widened in a way that she understood and urged him to go on. Ben rolled his eyes. "Don't you get it?! We'd be beating ourselves up!"

Gwen groaned. "Aw, come on!"

Max suddenly called from the other room. "Ben! I need you to come here. Your parents are on the phone."

Both Ben and Gwen's jaws dropped and eyes grew. "What?!" could be heard, shouted simultaneously.

_Thanks for reading! This is the end, 'cause there's no way in hell I'm going to finish this. I invite you to read _Viral_, my latest Ben 10 fanfiction that serves as a spiritual successor to this one._


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